Not too long ago, there was a major ethnographic study of how college students actually use libraries for research and learning demonstrated the degree to which students make use of libraries and librarians: not much.

The fact is, college libraries now serve multiple purposes. If I take a college tour, and the tour does not include at least a cursory look at the lobby of the library. Then I double back after the tour and try to figure out why. Some of them are palaces for the studious. The library at Grinnell College has tiered study carrels that all face the windows, each with its own comfy study chair and lamp.

Libraries also do store a bunch of stuff. But as the world goes digital, some of that stuff can be stored off-site, away from campus, and held for those who really take an interest in 16th century mining techniques in Serbia. Some libraries, like Widener Library at Harvard, are gigantic, with many sub-basements and tunnels connecting to other libraries. Being something of a geek, I always enjoyed studying in a library.  Something about the smell of all that ancient paper, the binding glue, the leather-bound volumes helped me take my task seriously.

But libraries have always been social spaces, too. Some of the rooms in large libraries are places to meet people, pass a few pleasantries, or to make eyes at one another. At my alma mater, it was the ’02 Room where more social interactions took place. The stacks (yes, that’s where I hung out) were a sort of solitary confinement that people enforced upon themselves to get their work done.

The last decade, however, has taken the social aspects of the library to new levels. At most places, you will find that each floor–or parts of floors–that are designated as “high volume,” “low volume,” and “silent” workplaces. At some, you can barely hear yourself think above the roar of the cappuccino machine, which has become de rigeur on an increasing number of campuses (and parents wonder why college costs keep going up…we’re all addicted to lattes).

Anyway, I have begun to ruminate on the place of libraries on college campuses, and I did this short little video at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on a recent trip there. Libraries will continue to evolve. This video points to the fact that the digital age may actually allow some colleges to recover beautiful common spaces that had to be refitted to hold “stuff.”

Have a quick look. Or you can read the transcript below, if you are so inclined.

Right now I’m on the campus of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and I’m in the library. It’s a very nice space, but I noticed a couple of things that were kind of interesting. This room is a vast, old room. Architecturally, quite nice, but you can see here behind me that these metal shelves were put in here—this is the periodicals room—and to shelve periodicals; so there’s a copy of the London Times, Le Monde, La Stampa from Italy, Die Zeit from Germany; all these newspapers and then periodicals, including scholarly journals.

An interesting phenomenon happening on campuses today is that all of these periodicals are being eliminated because everything is available digitally. There are some libraries that are actually moving their entire book collections off-campus so that they can repurpose some of the buildings and the storage spaces. So you can see that this room—I don’t know how many years ago, but not all that long ago—was divided up, and they put these metal shelves in to actually create more storage space. Well, now the storage space is all on a computer chip.

It’s going to be interesting to see what colleges do with their space—if they repurpose it and if so, what are they going to repurpose it for?  I’ve talked before about the fact that a lot of common spaces on campus are not used that much. Because students are connecting via Facebook and text rather than actually congregating in particular places as they used to. So I think college campuses will make a pretty rapid evolution to repurposing the spaces that they use. It’ll be interesting to see.

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This question is emblazoned on all sorts of college paraphernalia at the Grinnell College bookstore.
Watch this short video and you’ll be asking yourself a slightly different question: “Why the hell have I never heard of Grinnell?”

**Correction: My buddy, Dan Jarrett, wrote in to show me the most recent IPEDS data: among non-sectarian, liberal arts colleges, Grinnell actually ranks #4 in per capita endowment resources, behind Pomona, Swarthmore, and Amherst. Wiliams ranks a close fifth. For more on how these figures can be pulled apart to reveal a real wealth disparity among American colleges and universities, see Dan’s post.

If you prefer, you can check out the transcript below.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant
*********************
I’m here now on the campus of Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, and as I walked by the bookstore. I saw these water bottles that say on them, “Where the hell is Grinnell?”

Grinnell is definitely is in, well, it’s in Iowa. There’s a lot of corn around it. But this is a cute, little town and an absolutely marvelous liberal arts college. It has everything going for it. It has got the highest per-capita endowment of any college in America, the facilities are second to none. The library right over here has been renovated a couple of times. Absolutely drop dead gorgeous study spaces for students, looking out the windows, it’s phenomenal.

The science center has been renovated twice in the last 15 years or so, fantastic facilities, and great science. The gym and the fitness center, oh, my gosh!  I mean, I could go on and on. In the dormitories, we talked to one student and he was from Angola, okay. How did a student from Angola find Grinnell? I’m not sure, but this is a very international campus. Anyway, he was talking about the dormitories and saying, “I love my dorms!”

Look, if you are interested in a small, liberal arts college of the highest quality and all you’re thinking about is Williams and Amherst, think again. Think Iowa. Think Grinnell. Grinnell has fantastic resources for students, financial as well as human. I talked to a guy in a café downtown and he was a graduate of Grinnell and he said, “Oh, no, all the professors live here, they don’t live in Des Moines,” which is about an hour, hour-and-a-half away, “No, no, they all live in this community.” If you want tight relationships with your professors, Grinnell, my gosh, it’s really going to be hard to beat.

What else can I say about this place? Oh, again, international. This has one of the highest ratios of international students anywhere, here in Iowa. Why? Because people are looking for the highest quality education they can get in the United States. There are many other places, of course, and I don’t mean to suggest that other places aren’t equally good. But if you’re really looking for a top-notch school in America, think about Grinnell.

Another example, we were walking through the student center and a young man stopped us and said, “Can I help you?” And I said, “Well, we’re just looking around, but can I ask you a question, how’d you decide to come here?” And he said, “Well, I’m from Massachusetts and I was originally thinking of Williams and Amherst, but I needed money, I couldn’t afford those schools.” And Grinnell gave him a hefty merit package to come here and he said he has no regrets at all. People here are extremely passionate about whatever they’re interested in, and they are pretty laid back.

I mean, students who are willing to consider Iowa, they’re not as pretentious as some people who are looking necessarily for the name. They’re not looking for the geography of American education, they’re looking for the quality of American education. So you’re getting a slightly different tone here at Grinnell. Fabulous facilities, international campus, really bright student body, and it can be very affordable.

So if you haven’t figured out where the hell Grinnell is, you had better get it on your list.

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